Myopic rail view won't work for isle commuters
FINALLY, after decades of indecision and false starts, Honolulu stands poised to begin building a transit system that has the power and potential to ease traffic woes, stimulate economic development and bring transportation equity to residents islandwide.
So it was especially disheartening to read Rep. Colleen Meyer's recent column ("Gathering Place," Star-Bulletin, Dec. 25).
Contrary to her unsubstantiated claims, there is tremendous support for the locally preferred transit alternative recently selected by the Honolulu City Council. The designation of a fixed guideway system came after months of study and evaluation and literally hundreds of meetings with residents across Oahu held to both share information and gather input. More information on the process and the data shared can be found at www.honolulutransit.org.
Meyer touts the city of Tampa's elevated tollway as a viable alternative for Honolulu, and then goes on to cite a series of irrelevant figures about Tampa and inaccurate figures on cost, ridership and pricing about transit in general. Here is the real story.
The Tampa HOT viaduct is not paying for itself. Rather, it is being subsidized by tolls being collected on other facilities. The viaduct serves only 4,000 cars a day. And while Meyer questions the city's estimates of what it might cost Honolulu drivers to use this kind of facility, the Highway 91 Express Lanes in Orange County, Calif., currently cost drivers between $6 and $7 during peak hours. In testimony before the Honolulu City Council, working men and women from Oahu's west side said that kind of pricing would make a toll road too expensive for them to use.
ON THE other hand, the fixed guideway fare would be the same as the cost to ride the bus, currently $2.
Will people ride transit? According to the Transportation Research Board Study "Commuting in America III," which was released in October 2006, "since the mid-nineties transit patronage has increased substantially." Unlinked passenger trips increased by well over 10 percent during that time. Cities that gained in transit share between 1990 and 2000 include Las Vegas, Portland, Seattle, Boston, Denver, Sacramento, Orlando and San Francisco, and the list goes on.
MEYER ALSO fails to note that the fixed guideway system is simply part of an overall, multimodal approach that will include buses, bikeways and a soon-to-be-launched ferry system. Mayor Mufi Hannemann and his administration have always advocated this kind of integrated approach, as we understand full well the complexities of dealing with traffic. The 47 percent of Oahu residents who indicated that they would use rail will free capacity on the roads for drivers who do not choose to use rail.
And, while Meyer says we can't afford to build a transit system, the Council's independent task force that reviewed the Alternatives Analysis deemed the evaluation accurate, including estimates for construction costs and funding sources.
MEYER neglected to mention the broad funding base that the new transit system will have. The Council's recently passed legislation requires that the transit project undertaken be in line with available funding sources, including the 0.5 percent general excise tax surcharge, federal funds, public/private partnerships and the revenue that will be generated by transit-oriented development. This safeguard ensures that we will build only what we can pay for.
We are moving forward in our efforts to make Honolulu a world-class city by giving our citizens the transportation solutions they so desperately need and so rightly deserve.
Meyer is advocating a Band-Aid solution from a myopic point of view that will benefit only a few and only in the short-term. Now that's something we can't afford.
Melvin Kaku is director of the city Department of Transportation Services.